The Child Prince (The Artifactor) by Honor Raconteur Read Free Book Online Page B

workroom opened. “Is that Kip I hear?”
    Kip? Bellomi assumed she meant Morgan, but how on earth could she get the nickname Kip from Morgan?
    “Hello,” Morgan greeted. “I just came to see how you were and if the Prince was still alive.”
    “We’re fine,” she assured him laconically.
    “Well, I also came to update you on a few things.”
    “News, is it?” She waved him toward the inner section of the living space. “Let’s get comfortable and talk.”
    Agreeable to this, Morgan led the way inside.
    As Bellomi followed him, Sevana fell in step and said, “Kippy.”
    Bellomi ran that through his head, trying to make sense of it, but gave up after a few moments. “I’m sorry?”
    “Kip is short for Kippy,” she expounded.
    Morgan shot her a glare over his shoulder. “You don’t need to explain.”
    “The question was all over the kid’s face,” she responded with a very suspicious twinkle in her eyes. “You see, Bel, the man in front of you is infamous for having been hit with the Sleeping Princess curse.”
    Didn’t that curse only work on women…? Apparently not, if Morgan had been affected. Bellomi studied him curiously even as Morgan let out a pained groan.
    Ignoring her friend, Sevana continued, “He slept for nearly two weeks before I figured out how to break the curse and wake him up. Kippy means napping. Kip for short.”
    In other words, she was the type to do favors for people and then constantly remind them of it later. Or maybe she just knew that it bugged Morgan to hear her call him that and so she kept doing it. Probably both.
    “How did you get cursed with it, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    Very, very reluctantly, Morgan answered, “There are some old castle ruins near here where a sleeping princess used to lay. The curse still lingered in some of the stones. I just happened to touch a residual spot and…well….”
    “The adults warned us not to play there, of course,” Sevana added off-handly. “But Kip’s never been the kind to listen to warnings like that.”
    “I got better after being hit by that curse,” Kip defended himself.
    “ Better still leaves a lot of room for improvement.” Sevana skipped ahead of them both so that she could stretch out in her favorite chair near the fire. No matter what kind of rooms or tunnels Big created, there was always a draft and so no place inside of the mountain really ever got warm . Sevana seemed to be colder than most people on just a normal basis and gravitated to heat like a cat would.
    Bellomi also felt the cold easily, being from a warmer climate, and so he took the other wingback chair next to the fire. Well, he had to take off his swords first, as he hadn’t yet figured out a way to sit comfortably with two swords the length of your back strapped on. He leaned them against his chair as he got settled.
    Morgan stretched out along the long couch nearby, sitting down like a man that had been in that exact spot many times before. He’d likely had, at that.
    As he sat, he looked around the room as if searching for something. The only thing in here was chairs and the fireplace, really, so Bellomi couldn’t understand what Morgan needed.
    “Where’s Baby?”
    Bellomi blinked. Baby?
    “Oh, he’s around,” Sevana assured him, curling up tighter in her chair with her legs tucked under her. “He’s just not sure what to make of Bel yet, so he’s lurking in the shadows for now.”
    Not sure if he wanted a complete explanation, Bellomi nevertheless asked, “Baby?”
    “Mountain lion,” Morgan answered. “He’s been Sev’s friend since he was cub. Big found him, actually. He’s got to be, what, thirteen years old now?”
    “He would be if I weren’t feeding him age-reduction potions,” Sevana agreed.
    “Anyway, he’s sort of Sev’s pet/guard/friend. If Big can’t handle intruders, Baby has some fun chasing them through the tunnels. He’s actually quite a gentle cat, really, although he has this bad habit of